How to Find Plug Numbers in a Financial Model

A plug number is a constant typed directly inside a formula, like a growth rate baked into a multiplication instead of pulled from an assumption cell. Plugs make a model look right until a driver changes, then they silently lie. Finding them is one of the highest-value reviews you can run.

Understand why plugs are dangerous

A formula like =Revenue*1.05 looks harmless, but the 1.05 is invisible to anyone scanning assumption cells. Change the growth assumption elsewhere and this line ignores it.

The risk is not the existence of constants, it is constants hiding inside formulas where no one reviews them. The goal is to surface every one and decide whether it should be a reference instead.

Find constants with Go To Special

Excel can isolate cells that contain only constants, which helps, but it does not find numbers buried inside formulas. It is still a useful first pass.

1. Press Ctrl+G, then click Special.
2. Choose Constants and clear all boxes except Numbers, then click OK.
3. Review the selected cells; legitimate assumption inputs are fine, stray constants in calculation areas are suspect.
4. Remember this misses any number typed inside a formula, which is the harder problem.

Hunt constants inside formulas manually

To find numbers inside formulas, use Ctrl+H and search for digits, but this is noisy because cell references contain digits too. You end up sifting A1 and 2024 alongside real plugs.

Showing all formulas with Ctrl plus the grave accent key (the grave accent toggle) lets you eyeball a sheet, but on a large model this is slow and easy to miss.

Scan every plug at once with Find Hardcodes

ModelMint's Find Hardcodes scans the sheet for numbers typed inside formulas and flags them, separating real constants from cell references so you are not sifting noise.

Instead of toggling formula view and squinting, you get the actual plugs surfaced directly. This is the fastest honest way to answer "what constants are hiding in my formulas" before you hand the model to anyone.

Decide what to fix

Not every constant is a bug. A 12 for months or a 100 for a percentage conversion is fine and self-documenting. A growth rate, a tax rate, or a price assumption typed inside a formula is not.

For each flagged plug, move the value to a labeled assumption cell and reference it. The model now responds to that assumption everywhere, and the next reviewer can find it in one place.